The Manifestos

May 10, 2011

A shockingly common refrain that I’ve seen in the comments section of YouTube videos of opposition speeches are insinuations that the opposition have no plans for Singapore when elected. I hope these are their personal thoughts and are not parroted phrases from disinformation sowers. Either way, comments of such effect reflect extremely lazy and sloppy mental faculty.

Concrete plans (Manifesto) by each opposition party are available on their individual websites. It scares me that they can’t even be bothered to find out before screaming that they have no plans. This ridiculous expectation of being spoon-fed reflects very poorly of our education system. With the rise of the Internet and Google, is it that difficult to lift a finger to access each party’s manifesto and read?

More annoyingly, for those that just parrot arguments without thinking over their merits, deserve to be shot on two counts. One for propagating misinformation and two for being intellectually dishonest and lazy.

Another common refrain pertains to the details of the manifestos. Most often, they will claim that the ideas presented in the manifestos are “too vague” and are thus “unreliable” and “non-credible”, and hence they should support the ruling party.

This line of logic puzzles me as the manifesto produced by the ruling party is even more vague, complete with sentences that anybody can come up with. For the calibre of the ruling party they claim to be, I’d expected more. I’m insulted that the skimpy manifesto of theirs is actually produced by the group of the most highly paid ministers in the world. Surely they could have put in a little more effort? Or at least, stop claiming that the opposition lacked concrete plans, and that their manifestos require more scrutiny. In fact, there’s nothing in the ruling party’s manifesto to even scrutinise to return them their favour.

Quoting their favourite gauge of merit, the “track record”, I believe that the various parties’ manifestos are good representations of it. Any party in or out of parliament can produce one, as long as they put their hearts and minds to it.

Based on this gauge, how does the ruling party fair compared to the opposition parties? How much effort and thought can you see and feel from it?

If you were a teacher and you’ve tasked your students to produce a manifesto of what policies they would like to introduce in Singapore, what kind of grades would you give the various submissions?

So really, voters of Singapore, voters for our future, please exercise critical thinking and do a little bit of homework before believing everything that the ruling party claims, especially the press and media. Don’t be lazy, physically and intellectually. Think and find out.